Title of Program: "Year End Report"
2006 has been a year of grand successes, from a world record Yellowtail,
Dorado Blitz, Gullible Trout, grabby Steelhead and Tarpon.
This program takes you through the seasons and many species of fish in many
locations. The 55-minute program is accompanied by PowerPoint
projection & Video. Besides pictures of some fairly large fish and
grinning anglers, how-to and where-to tips will be provided.

Meeting at: High Rocks
Pub, Gladstone, OR
Presentation starts around 7:00pm, Tuesday, December 19
See you there!

The most significant change at Abel for 2007
is a new "Double Pawl" system in the internal mechanism of Super Series
reels #6 and larger reels and Big Game Series reels #3 and larger. We
never knew any of the old single pawl reels to break down. So this
insignificant change becomes very significant in the way that the folks at
Abel think, "Eliminate problems before they happen!" We have tested a
couple of their larger reels that were built with double pawls a couple of
years ago. You're going to like the new sound.

Abel
Super,
Big Game and X-Stream Reels25%
OFF !!! Limited To Stock On HandThese are all brand new, top quality reels. Abel has
always produced the bench mark reels that all other reels are compared
to. They have changed very little since the first ones appeared many
years ago. That is because the design was perfected before it came to
market. This year Abel added an extra pawl to it's internal mechanism.
We never new any of the old single pawl reels to break down, but now they
are being cleared out to make room for the new double pawl models we have
coming.

We were introduced to the "blood-shot minnow concept", by
Captain Bob Marvin out of Naples, Florida. After spending five days
fishing with him in the Everglades, and after catching 80% of our snooks,
jacks and tarpons on the Blood-Shot Minnow, it became one of our favorite
flies for fishing black-water creeks and mangrove edges. It can be
effective any where schools of predatory fish are intercepting schools of
bait fish. These flies represent bait fish which have been injured by
impact from larger fish. Often blood collects beneath the

transparent skin and scales when a baitfish is bruised.
Instead of turning dark color like humans, many bait fish turn red or
pink. Wounded baitfish often turns pearlescent glittery pink. At the
exact point of impact, blood is much more prominent; most usually near the
head. This phenomenon has been know for years by lure makers. Nearly
every series of bass and saltwater plugs has a red and white model.
Captain Bob's fly was tied like the one portrayed here, except the collar
was made from bubblegum pink rabbit strip.

Captain Raul Castenada advised us that their favorite
tarpon fly for the Campeche, Mexico area was white with a red collar. Our
pattern is a cross between Bob's and Raul's. It has proven to be very
effective on both tarpon and snook. I would advise however, that you tie
some with a collar that is only pink and leave out the red. Some types of
baitfish don't get the red spot where the impact occurred. Often minor
details like this can make a difference in how many fish you hook.

Blood-Shot Minnow Tool and Material ListFor this fly you will need the following items:

Place the hook in your vise, making sure the shank is
level. If you intend that your vise is going to be used in the rotary
mode, be sure the shank lines up with the center of rotation. Wrap a
short, thin foundation of thread onto the rear 1/3rd of the hook, trim of
the tag end and coat these wraps with a thin, but penetrating layer of
Zap-A-Gap. This will guarantee that the fly will never turn on the hook.
For maximum durability, all layers of material should be penetrated with
enough Zap-A-Gap to stick to stick to the layer under it.

When you select bucktail for this fly, take it from the
upper 2/3rds of the tail. Hair on the lower 1/3rd of the tail will be
coarser than you will want. Stack & sort the bucktail so it is fairly
even for length. When your bundle of bucktail is prepared, it should be
about 5-times larger at the base than the diameter of the hook shank.
Position the bucktail so that it is slightly in excess of twice as long as
the hook. I use the swivel screw on my Renzetti Master Vise a a gauge for
the length of the hair. Tie the bundle on with a narrow band of thread.

Leave the ends of the hair long so they can be tapered
with your scissors. Clip at an angle, the top and both sides. This taper
will allow all other materials to be added added without bumps or
drop-offs. This will also enable the fly to be finished with a very small
head. The forward half of the hook shank is left bare so that a shock
tippet on your leader can be snelled directly onto the hook

Tarpon and many other game fish have teeth that tear flies
apart in short order. Adding Zap-A-Gap to the base of the bucktail will
make you flies much more durable. Add Zap-A-Gap sparingly, but use enough
to penetrate to the foundation thread wraps you have already glued onto
the hook. When you removed hair bulk by tapering the forward part of the
bucktail, you prepared that area for Zap-A-Gap to penetrate in a very
controllable manner. Wrapping a layer of thread over this wet Zap-A-Gap
will help distribute it evenly.

Add five strips of Pearl Flashabou and strips of
Fluorescent Pink Krystal flass to each side of the tail. Cut the strands
flashy materials off the hank more than twice as long as the bucktail part
of the tail. Be sure you have the right quantity of strands in your
bundle. Cutting the strands where they meet the package is the easiest.
Drape them over your tying thread and pull them tight so the ends meet.
Run bundle down to the hook and secure it with a coupel of wraps of
thread. Then pull strands back along each side of the tail and wrap the
bases down.

I do the Flashabou and then the Krystal Flash. Trim the
ends slightly beyond the ends of the bucktail, then clip them so the the
ends are all uneven. this will giv the fly more flash and the ends of the
flash-strands will look like loosened scales.

Select a fluorescent pink dyed saddle hackle. Soft webby
hackles that have a lot of fluff at the base give the best action when
wet. Gently pull the fibers back along the butt of the stem and prepare
to attach it to the base of the bucktail and flashy materials. There
should be a slight residue of Zap-A-Gap which has leaked up through the
bucktail. This will help secure the hackle stem to the rest of the fly as
it is wound forward and tied off. If you feel that this glue insufficient
in volume or is too dry, and think you should add more, be careful.

Adding Zap-A-Gap to this part of the fly is tricky. If
you add too much, it will soak up through the absorbent hackle fibers and
they will become ugly and stiff. It may be hard to tell if fish care
about such things, but... Also if you use very much glue and then then
pinch the fly while you are working on it, the hackle fibers are instantly
trained in the direction they were pointing at the time. If you can glue
the hackle stems to the rest of the fly and leave the barbules completely
natural, then it is a good move. Use less than 1/2 what you think you

need, then wait a few minutes before the next step.

Wind this hackle forward and tie it off. Wind the hackle
so that it forms a dense collar. It is best not to not stroke the fibers
back as any wet glue will wind up in the wrong place when you touch the
fly. A rotating hackle pliers will make your job easier. If you intend to
tie in the optional red hackle, tie off the pink hackle where the barbules
are still fairly long. If only a pink hackle is used, you might want to
to use it all.

When you add the red hackle, use the tiniest drop of
Zap-A-Gap or none at all. Zap-A-Gap will make your fly much more durable,
but the tie-off area is one that gets handled a lot during the tying
process.

It is better to apply the Zap-A-Gap after the head of the
fly is finished and the thread has been trimmed off. Apply a very small
drop and let dry over-night. This picture was shot at very low shutter
speed and the glue bottle had to be held in position for too long. An
excess of glue ran out of the bottle and this fly was ruined...and thrown
away. You can notice how all of the red hackle fibers are stuck together.

The construction of this fly involved exactly the right
amount of Zap-A-Gap at each step. Every fiber is secured to the hook with
Zap-A-Gap, and every fiber is totally natural and independent. This fly
will catch lots of fish because it will act wounded, but alive, and it is
as durable as possible.

The online Fly Tying
Instructions offered above, as well as the
Scandinavian Tube Fly Tutorial offered in the previous newsletter
were were a lot of fun to do. We like doing them. But, they take a
lot of work to put together. That is probably the only reason other
sites don't offer presentations of this quality. They take a lot of
time and time is money. So give me a clue with some feed-back.
Do you like this kind of information? Do you find it useful or
entertaining?
Do you want some more? Do you have ideas you would like to share?
flyfish@flyfishusa.com

John Newbury at
www.flyfishnw.com showed me how to do magnified pictures easy. Just
click on any picture that has the little magnifying glass and a bigger
picture will appear. Take a look at www.flyfishnw.com . It has
some great fly tying tutorials.